How Roquefort and the Aristocats Became Friends
by Martial Arts Master
Summary: Exactly what the title says. Takes place before the Aristocats movie. Please review!


How Roquefort and the Aristocats Became Friends  
  
by Martial Arts Master  
  
Aristocats and all related characters copyrighted by Walt Disney and Walt Disney studios. This is my idea of how Roquefort the mouse became friends with the Aristocats when by the laws of nature he should've been cat food. (At least I think so...but I'm not a cat expert, so I don't know if cats eat mice in real life.) Enjoy!  
  
***   
  
  
  
Roquefort was a mouse of great skill.  
  
He could slip into a high-class house, steal some food, and slip out before anyone noticed the food was gone.  
  
One day, though, Roquefort's way of life was about to change...  
  
  
  
It all started one day when he was talking to a mouse acquaintance named Tolliere. (Author's Note: I made him up.)  
  
"So, you think you're so smart 'cause you're able to take food from any place you try?" Tolliere asked Roquefort.  
  
"Well, I didn't actually call myself smart," Roquefort responded. "I just happened to have a high success rate in every place I tried, that all. I wasn't bragging about anything."  
  
"And yet you just happened to try every place that doesn't have any cats in it," Tolliere snapped sarcastically.  
  
"Of course I didn't try any place with cats!" Roquefort exclaimed. "That would be suicide."  
  
"Chicken! Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken!" Tolliere taunted. Tolliere hated the upper-class society of the early 1900's and took great pains _not_ to emulate its standards of politeness.  
  
"I am not a chicken!" Roquefort snapped.  
  
"Then prove it!" Tolliere dared. "Go into the house where the Aristocats live and take food from there."  
  
For among the mice, the four cats in question, Duchess, Berlioz, Toulouse, and Marie (although their names were unknown to the mice) were called the Aristocats because they lived a life a luxury under their kind mistress. Roquefort screamed.  
  
"Are you crazy? There are no less than _four cats_ in that house!" Roquefort shouted. "If the kittens count as cats, that is...I'll end up mouse food."  
  
Tolliere turned his back on Roquefort.  
  
"Fine," he said, "I'll just tell all our mouse friends what a coward you are, unwilling to face danger."  
  
That did it.  
  
"Okay, I'll take food from the house of the Aristocats!" Roquefort boasted. "Then you'll be sorry..."  
  
Roquefort immediately dashed off to the house of the Aristocats, leaving Tolliere behind...  
  
  
  
When he reached the house, he wondered what he was getting himself into.  
  
"I could be killed..." he told himself, "but I'll show Tolliere that I'm not a coward."  
  
He gulped, and then quickly slipped into the house via a ground-level window.  
  
Once inside, he started looking around for food, taking care to be silent lest he alert the cats.  
  
He didn't have much luck until he smelled biscuits.  
  
He drooled and followed his nose.  
  
It turned out that the butler of the house was carrying the biscuits. (Author's Note: Remember, this takes place before the Aristocats movie.)  
  
That was all right. Roquefort wasn't scared of the butler, as long as he didn't see him.  
  
Roquefort followed the butler to wherever the butler was carrying the biscuits, hoping for an opportunity to steal them.  
  
Roquefort soon got a nasty shock, however.  
  
It turned out that the butler was carrying the biscuits to..._the Aristocats_!!!  
  
Roquefort looked around frantically, and spotted a mouse-hole in the wall.  
  
Now that's odd, Roquefort thought to himself. Why would there be a mouse-hole in a place like this?  
  
He didn't look a gift horse in the mouth, as the expression goes, for much longer, however. He quickly dashed into it before the cats could see him.  
  
He watched the butler set the biscuits down before the cats, and the cats began to chow down on them...eating like high-class cats, of course.  
  
Roquefort looked at the biscuits with longing, both out of hunger and out of a desire to prove to Tolliere that he wasn't a coward by bringing back food.  
  
He waited until he thought the cats were looking the other way...and then he quickly dashed to the biscuits, taking one and making a break for it.  
  
Unfortunately for him, he tripped over Berlioz's tail, bringing himself into full view of all the cats.  
  
Duchess laughed, amused.  
  
"It appears we have a mouse among us," she said, laughing gently.  
  
"Please don't eat me!" Roquefort screamed, throwing himself into a begging position. "I don't wanna die! I don't wanna die!"  
  
The Aristocats all started laughing.  
  
"We don't eat mice," Marie informed Roquefort through her giggles. "It isn't polite."  
  
"Who'd wanna eat something that _moves_, anyway?" Toulouse muttered with a look of disgust on his face.  
  
"We're not gonna eat you," Berlioz said to Roquefort.  
  
Roquefort was surprised.  
  
"But...I thought all cats ate mice," he stammered.  
  
"Try not to judge all cats by one characteristic, dear," Duchess replied.  
  
"So why are you here, anyway?" Berlioz asked.  
  
Roquefort explained to the Aristocats about Tolliere and his dare.  
  
"It sounds as though Tolliere is not a very good friend," Duchess observed.  
  
Roquefort felt uncomfortable at this statement.  
  
"Well...he's not _that_ bad," Roquefort replied, "but he's never risked his life before, so he thinks it's easy for others to do so. And now I have to bring him back some food so he'll know I carried out his dare."  
  
Toulouse offered Roquefort a biscuit.  
  
"You can have this," he said. "And tell Toulliere that he's a jerk."  
  
"Now now, Toulouse, that is not polite," Duchess scolded Toulouse. "I do, however, have an idea on how to make sure that Tolliere regrets _his_ rudeness in pressuring you to visit a place where you could potentially have been killed, if we had not been cultured cats..."  
  
  
  
An hour later, Tolliere was minding his own business, eating a piece of cheese.  
  
"Roquefort hasn't come back yet," he muttered to himself. "What an idiot. He claims he's such a big-shot mouse but he's nothing at all."  
  
Tolliere was, of course, ignorant of the fact that Roquefort had never bragged about his abilities.  
  
"Serves him right if the Aristocats kill him," he continued to himself. "He's probably mouse food by now. What do I care?"  
  
"Gee, that doesn't say much for you as an acquaintance," Roquefort said from behind him.  
  
Tolliere gasped, turning around.  
  
Upon seeing Roquefort, he immediately changed his tune.  
  
"I'm so glad to see you!" he cried, unaware that Roquefort had heard everything he said. "I was so worried for your safety!"  
  
"Were you now...?" Roquefort asked rhetorically, signalling to someone behind him.  
  
Tolliere screamed when a white female cat walked up from behind Roquefort, claws outstretched.  
  
"I actually made friends with this cat," Roquefort said to Tolliere, tossing him a biscuit, "and here's the proof that I carried out your stupid dare. Now apologize to me at once for threatening to tell all the mice I'm a coward unless I did what you said, or I'll be forced to sic Duchess on you. You'd make a very tasty meal..."  
  
"Okay! Okay! I'm sorry! Please don't sic her on me!" Tolliere begged.  
  
In response, Duchess licked her lips and hissed.  
  
"She's getting hungry, but I'll forgive you," Roquefort said, "on one condition. Get out of my sight, and never speak to me again. I don't associate with people who would blackmail others into going into dangerous situations."  
  
Tolliere immediately turned around and ran like heck out of there.  
  
When Tolliere was gone, Roquefort said to Duchess, "I had no idea you were such a good actress."  
  
"Well, I _have_ heard of Shakespeare, you know," Duchess said, immediately reverting to her gentle personality, "and I've even acted in some feline versions of his plays. I know a thing or two about being something I'm not."  
  
Then Duchess shuddered.  
  
"I didn't like having to behave like a common alley cat, though," Duchess muttered.  
  
"You won't need to...ever again," Roquefort promised.  
  
"Roquefort...I am thinking," Duchess mused. "You are the only animal company we've had in a long time, besides Frou-Frou the horse. We could use another friend. How would you like to live in my mistress's house? We even have a mouse-hole thanks to a previous mouse occupant who lived in the house before we did."  
  
Roquefort couldn't believe his ears, but he graciously accepted the offer.  
  
And that, friends, is how Roquefort became friends with the Aristocats.  
  
  
  
The End  
  
  
  
E-mail all other questions and comments to bleifer@comcast.net 


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